Saving Grace
by Gimme Mocha
Summary: Grace Bowden is still a small-time witch, but that's enough to put her square in the sights of a serial killer whose path of destruction has brought him to Chicago. White Night spoilers!


I was closing in on the end of my shift when I got ruined for all other men.

Quarter to six in the evening was a busyish time in the store. As one of Chicago's pagan supply stores, we never did what one might call a brisk business, but Janice Longfellow ran her Womyn's Workshoppe on Wednesday nights and people trickled in after work to pick up whatever odds and ends they had need of, so I wasn't alone when _he_ walked in.

Now, I'd seen handsome men before. Chicago has its share, and I still had delightful memories of Warden Gorgeous (né Carlos Ramirez) after our two up-and-close meetings. But this guy was in a whole other league, a league that Adonis was still trying to get into after he did some more work on his abs.

He was six feet of Yes Please, with dark hair that curled just at the tops of his broad shoulders and smoke-gray eyes fringed with soot-black lashes I could see from where I was. He wore a snug pullover shirt of charcoal gray that outlined every smooth, sleek muscle he had, tucked into a pair of snow-white slacks. A white leather coat did nothing to hide the spread of his chest, or the narrow line of his waist and hips.

Distantly, I heard something break. I realized Janice had dropped the statue of Loki she had been eyeing. I should have been charging it to her account and maybe burning a bit of incense in apology to the god of mischief, but all I could think was that doing so would mean taking my eyes off of _him_, and screw it 'cause how mad could Loki get anyway?

The air in the store had gone perfectly still. Six women frozen, not one of them willing to breathe, as he walked across the store toward the counter. Toward me. Me.

"Are you Grace Bowden?" he asked.

"Oh god, I hope so."

He smiled, his eyes lightening with amusement. He thought I was funny. That was nice. Our children would inherit a good sense of humor. He started talking again, but I lost track of what he was saying because it was far more important to watch the movement of the supernaturally perfect curves of his kissable, lickable, chewable lips.

Supernaturally...

I frowned a little, as that one word replayed itself over and over. It buzzed around the otherwise empty space in my head like an annoying mosquito, droning on and on, bouncing off my skull to ricochet some more. The mosquito snagged one image, then another, then an entire concept.

I recognized him. It.

Aw _man_.

"Whoa!" I said, shaking my head hard and flailing my hands in the air between us, palms out as if I could erase him from sight. I failed, but at least I was awake now. "Dammit. You. Out." I pointed toward the door, thrusting a hand past his head.

He blinked at my hand, at me. "What? Why?"

I realized we still had a lot of attention. Some of it was unfriendly, and directed at me. I was kicking out the sex god, and even the lesbian was pissed.

I leaned closer to him and dropped my voice to a hissing whisper. "Because this isn't an all-you-can-eat sushi bar, that's why."

Wow, he smelled good. I took a long, slow inhale before I caught myself. "And stop that," I added, leaning away again.

He pursed his lips, and I grabbed the edge of the counter so I wouldn't help him with that. Purely in the name of customer service, of course. "I didn't want to do it this way, but I'm running out of time. Here's the thing," he said. His eyes lightened more, only this time it wasn't a metaphor. Warm gray brightened to pale silver. "I really need you to come with me. Right now."

Need. Passion. Desire. The English language just doesn't have the words to describe the heat that clawed out of some dark, hidden part of my soul. I doubt any human tongue does. I hadn't even known I was capable of feeling what he made me feel by just standing there with eyes like pooled mercury, not even touching me. It wasn't that I didn't know him for what he was. I knew. He was pleasure, he was passion, he was death. I knew. I just didn't care.

I was going to die. I was going to die, and actually I was okay with that. Heck, if someone had told me how good it would feel, I'd have died ages ago. I crawled over the counter to get to him. Like a gentleman, he helped me down, keeping hold of my hand as he led me outside and he didn't even object when I nibbled his jaw, just to see what it tasted like. He did disentangle himself from me when we got to the car, though.

It was almost a let-down that his car was an Everycar, a four-door sedan that could have belonged to an accountant from the 'burbs, but I got in anyway. He let go of me to jog around the front of the car, and I slowly pulled the seatbelt down to fasten it. I watched as he stopped by the front bumper, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths. He leaned against the car for a moment, and I found myself staring at his elegant fingers. I thought about stripping off my shirt, just to save us some time, but paused with my hands knotted in the material. Something was wrong with this scenario.

My eyes drifted toward the storefront, crowded with customers gaping out at us. My frown deepened. The store. I should probably still be in the store, shouldn't I? I had left my purse. I was supposed to close.

The driver's side door slammed shut. "I'm sorry," I heard the man say. "I didn't have time for honesty and long conversations."

The engine started. I lifted one hand to touch it to the window. I shouldn't be here.

Suddenly, my brain came home from whatever vacation it had gone on. Shit. Vampire.

I scrambled for the release on the seatbelt, but before I could get it undone, he hit the accelerator, tires yelping in surprise as the car lurched into traffic.

"No!" he yelled. "Grace, you need to trust me!"

Don't look. Don't look at his eyes. "Yeah right!"

"I'm trying to save your life, I swear. Grace, look at me."

"Again, gonna hafta go with 'yeah right'."

"Look, I know you don't under— Damn. Too late."

I almost looked at him then, but managed not to. Instead, I clapped a hand over my eyes to resist the temptation. Vampire. I just had to keep reminding myself of that. Vampire. Forget the way he smelled, that subtle cologne twining around me, the warmth of his hand on the gear shift near my thigh, the rough cadence of his voice as he said… What was he saying?

"—time to explain it all to you."

"Sorry, what?"

There was silence. I split my fingers apart to peek at him. His smoke-colored eyes flicked between the traffic ahead of us and the rear view mirror, but he did glance over at me once. I saw his lips twitch. "Seriously, you don't have to do that."

I clamped my fingers shut again. "Hah," I said. "I'm onto you. Think I don't know what a psi-vamp is? I know what a psi-vamp is."

"What a what is?"

"Yeah, that's right, bucko. You just keep your little brain-scrambles to yourself. Six people saw me leave with you, if I go missing they'll know exactly who to sic the cops on."

"I'm not a… What the hell is a psi-vamp?"

"A vampire that feeds off of psychic energy." I was starting to feel stupid with my hand over my eyes. I could hear tires squealing, and I got tossed against the car door. We were doing some fancy driving at speeds that didn't feel at all safe. Maybe I didn't want to look. "Tell me you're not a psi-vamp."

"I… don't think I am. I mean, I am. I suppose. Sort of."

"That's what I thought. Lemme out!"

"I have no intention of eating you, you stupid child. Put your hand down, you look like an idiot."

I dropped my hand and glared at him. "No, you don't get to kidnap me and pretend to be the injured party, here."

"I'm trying to save your life," he said with exaggerated patience. "Though I'm starting to forget why. I'm part of the White Court. Do you know what that is?"

"A secret club that explains wearing those pants after Labor Day?"

"No, it… It's April! There's nothing wrong with these pants." The car whipped around a turn, the squeal of the tires all but obliterated in the wake of honking horns. "There's someone out to kill you. I'm going to stop them."

I grabbed for the dashboard and tried not to get thrown into his lap, because that would have been just terrible. "By getting into a car crash? That's a novel approach!"

"Just hang on."

"It's not that I don't have some basic feminine appreciation for the whole style of this kidnapping—"

"I'm _not_ kidnapping you, for the last time."

"Yeah, you're 'saving me'." I used air quotes. The situation called for them. "Got news for you, Don Quixhottie, no one's after me. I'm nobody."

"They don't seem to think so." He nodded his head toward the rear view mirror.

I turned to look.

A white Land Rover hit the corner and came screaming after us. I saw a window roll down and someone leaned out, pulling something out after him.

"Is that a rifle?"

"Get down!"

My kidnapper shoved my head and I curled into as tiny a ball as I could. I heard a sound like someone was using a nail gun on the car trunk.

Oh my god. Someone was trying to kill me.

"What the hell is going on?" I screamed.

"I don't know yet. Not entirely," the psi-vamp said. "I only got wind of this a couple of weeks ago. You're the first one I've managed to beat them to."

"Them? Who are they? First one what? Who _are_ you?"

"Twenty questions later," was his suggestion. "Can you shoot?"

"A gun?"

"Yes, Grace, can you shoot a gun?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Is there anything more to it than point and pull the trigger?"

"If you don't want to kill bystanders, yes." He whipped the wheel around and sent us skidding onto the freeway. Why we weren't being chased by half of the Chicago PD, I didn't know.

Well, you know what they say. Never a cop around when you've been kidnapped by a psychic vampire trying to save you from shotgun-happy murderers.

The maneuver didn't help; the Land Rover was gaining. Another shotgun blast blew out the rear window, and I ducked away from the spray of glass and bullets. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap," I said, frantically brushing glass out of my hair.

"Do something," Gray Eyes said, teeth clenched.

Something? I stared at him.

"I can't outrun them in this thing," he said. "If they catch us, we're both dead. I can't drive and shoot, and I can't slow down enough for you to take the wheel. You're a witch, do something!"

"What did you have in mind, blessing them to death?"

"Blast them or something!"

"Look, genius, is the power steering working in this thing? The electronic dash?"

He blinked. "Yes."

"Then take the hint! I can't blast things."

"We're screwed," he muttered.

I unfastened my seatbelt. "Blast them," I muttered in return. "Crazy vampire thinks I'm Harry Dresden."

"What are you doing?"

"Just drive! Don't kill anyone trying to save me."

Keeping as low as I could, I crawled into the back seat, trying not to cut my hands on any of the pebbles of safety glass from the shattered back window. I lifted my head for a quick glance, ducking down immediately when I saw the shotgun. Luckily for me, our armed follower wasn't a champion Whack-A-Mole player. He didn't take the shot.

"Get them closer," I shouted toward the front seat.

"If they get any closer, they'll be in the back seat with you."

"You want them blasted, you're going to have to slow down."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the vampire's renewed muttering as the car decelerated. Fear was easy to access. Fear, hell. I was terrified. Someone was trying to kill me. More than one someone. They had a large, fast car and a gun and they were trying to kill me. They were coming, and my only protector was a vampire who'd probably eat me as a roadside snack. I was trapped.

I gathered up all that fear, mentally pushed it into a smaller and smaller space inside of me, poured it into the space between my clenched hands. Fear fed magic. My hands grew warm, warmer, hot.

Peeking over the back of the seat again, I lifted my little ball of fear-fueled power and blew on it, setting it free out the rear window like a butterfly.

It wasn't a spell. It wasn't a formed bit of magic intended to produce any effect. It was just pure magic, held together by my will. Held together, that is, until the Land Rover caught up to it half a second later. It hit the front grille, and everything electronic in the car exploded in a shower of sparks.

"Floor it!" I yelled.

I got thrown off balance and into the seat back as he slapped the accelerator down. The SUV receded rapidly in the distance, black smoke curling out from under the hood. I poked my head up farther, then crawled back into the front seat.

"Okay," I said with a sigh, refastening my seat belt. "Who the hell are you?"

"Thomas," he said, checking the rearview mirror again. "Thomas Raith."

Thomas Thomas Raith took me to an apartment out in the Gold Coast that looked like it had been decorated by the crew from Overhaulin'. There was chrome and leather everywhere, and, bizarrely, a Wizard of Oz poster on one wall and one from some pirate movie on another. I think my psi-vamp was gay, which was probably the worst thing that had happened to me yet. How unfair.

I huddled in a chair and tried not to vomit on anything.

Someone had tried to kill me.

My would-be rescuer was stuffing things into a duffel bag. "I don't think they saw me, which was sort of the point of the rent-a-wreck," he said, "but we can't stay here. Just in case. I don't want them picking up your trail here."

Someone had tried to _kill_ me.

"You can stay at a hotel for now. It won't be the nicest place; we'll have to find one that takes cash and doesn't ask for ID." He flashed a smile at me. "I know a few of those."

Someone had tried to kill _me_.

Thomas crouched in front of me, setting one hand on my knee. "You in there?" he said gently. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head, giving him a woebegone look.

"Are you hurt?"

"Someone tried to kill me," I told him in a tiny voice.

He relaxed a little, and half his mouth curved up. "Gee, you act like no one's ever done that before."

"Well," I said after a moment's thought, "there were these ghosts once…"

He studied me a moment longer, but I couldn't work up the energy to fawn properly despite his closeness. Then he laughed, a warm chuckle of sound that brought my head up. "Don Quixhottie," he said. Tilting his head, he narrowed his eyes in thought. "I like it."

I finally managed a wan smile. "I'll get you a t-shirt."

"Hey. No one's going to kill you. I promise. Okay?"

I didn't answer.

"What?"

"It's just… You're a vampire," I pointed out.

"Yeah," he agreed, rising in a supple shifting of muscle that should have had me applauding. "But I'm a good-guy vampire."

I thought about that. "Okay," I said, surrendering to it all. "Sure. Why not? I watched Angel."

"Boreanaz can suck it. We have to go."

"I… I need to call people. My boss. Tell them…" I stopped, watching his expressions. "I can't call anyone, can I? In case."

"It's just for a little while, until I can figure out what's going on and how to stop it."

"What _is_ going on?" I sighed. "I'm sorry. I just... I can't seem to make my brain work."

He set down the duffel bag, temporarily abandoning the 'leave now' plan. "That's the shock," he said, not unkindly. "I remember being shocked the first time people tried to kill me. I think I was twelve."

I don't think he was kidding. It was hard to say.

"Look." He pulled a folder out of the duffel and handed it to me. "These are women from other cities. Witches, like you. Not powerful ones, just average, everyday witches."

I flipped it open. They were pictures of dead women. My brow puckered as I tried to figure out why he thought showing me pictures of dead people would help. "Who killed them?" But I answered my own question. "The same people who were after me?"

"Yes," he said.

"And… and now they're here? The killers? In Chicago?"

He nodded.

"Did they come here because of me?"

"Not you, specifically," he said. "Just witches."

"How do they know about me?"

"Probably found you the same way I did," he said. "You and your friend Matt, you have that ghostbusting website. You manage a store where a lot of witches buy their supplies. You shop at Bock Ordered Books. You go where witches go, and do what witches do. You're actually pretty visible."

I knew that website was a bad idea. I was totally kicking Matt in the shins when I saw him again. Assuming I ever did see him again. I closed the folder. "So why are you involved? How did you find out about all this?"

He took the folder from me and stuffed it into his duffel bag again. "I can't tell you everything," he said. "Let's just say it's politics. There's a group of people who don't want them to succeed."

"In killing witches."

"Yes," he said after a pause that did nothing for my confidence.

It didn't matter how much he told me. I still couldn't get my brain to process it. "Now what?"

"Now, I get you someplace safe. Stash you away somewhere until I can stop them."

"And the others? I mean, the other witches like me?"

He ran a hand through his hair. He had really nice hair, shoulder length, thick and black. What? I noticed. Sue me. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess I try to get them to safety, too. If I can figure out who's going to get grabbed. How many can there be in Chicago?"

I thought about the witches I knew, the ones in covens, the solitaries who came into the store, the Wiccans, the Asatru, the neo-Druids, the Santerians, the famtrads... We were going to need a big hotel. But then he had said the ones like me. Not every witch had power, real power. Most of the people I knew couldn't manage any real magic. It was more a religion for them. That would take the numbers down. Maybe, what, forty? Fifty, max?

"You could help me," Thomas said.

I looked up at him.

"Help me find them." He liked the idea, to judge by the excitement in his eyes, and he reached out to grab a footstool to sit on. "You could tell me who has the kind of abilities they're looking for. Just women, that's all they're after."

I blanched. "No," I said. "No no no."

"Why not?"

"I can't just tell you who's a witch! You gonna tell me who in the city's a vampire?"

"If I thought it would save their lives, I might."

"Forget it."

"This code of secrecy is only going to get them killed, Grace."

"And it's also the only thing that's kept us, y'know, un-burned at the stake."

"No one burns witches at the stake anymore. Hell, there's a wizard in the phone book."

I laughed, a short bark of bitter amusement. "Anyone wants to try burning him at the stake, I wish 'em luck and hope they've got their life insurance premiums paid up," I said. "The rest of us don't have his level of protection."

Thomas took my hands in his and gripped them tight, gray eyes gone hard with determination. "Today, you do."

I almost believed him. I wanted to believe him. I wanted it very badly, but it wasn't just my life I was gambling with. I did take a minute to enjoy the spectacle, though. "I can't. I'm sorry."

"I saved your life, didn't I?"

"And how do I know this wasn't some big plan to get my trust? What if you're working with them, and you want me to ID people so you can all get together and kill them?"

He jerked to his feet and paced away into the apartment's kitchen, scrubbing at his chin. He had no ready answer. In a weird way, that made me more inclined to believe him.

I stood too, only then noticing that at some point Thomas had draped a blanket over my shoulders. "Look… Thank you. Honestly. But I've got to go."

His hand wrapped around my upper arm. "Are you nuts? They'll kill you."

I blinked at his abrupt proximity, frowned, and leaned around him to look into the kitchen in case there were two of him. Which would've presented some interesting possibilities, but there weren't. "Weren't you just over there?" I asked.

He ignored that. "They'll be looking to reacquire you. At your apartment, your store, your friends' apartments. You're being hunted. And trust me, these people? They know how to hunt."

"And I know how to stay alive. Besides, I'm a witch, remember?" I gave him my best smile, which wasn't nearly as nice as his but I had to make do with what I had. "I can be resourceful."

"They know you're a witch. They're prepared for it."

"I have to go. I have to warn the others. I won't tell you who they are, but I won't leave them out there with no warning. I'm not the only one they're hunting." For the first time since I'd gotten in his car, I looked him in the eyes. "They won't find me; I've lived in Chicago my whole life. I know how to hide here."

His eyes did that gray-to-silver thing again, and I could see he was contemplating something serious. Between that and the slow, drawing sensation of the opening of a soulgaze, I looked away. The gaze would have let me know if I could trust him, but I didn't think I wanted to look that deeply into a psychic vampire's soul.

He let go of my arm. "You have no idea what you're up against," he said.

I walked to the apartment door. I should have had a parting line ready, something witty and formidable. Something like 'neither do they', but they did know what they were up against. I just had to hope they were wrong.

Movement was my best defense. I was lucky I kept my Chicago Card on the neck lanyard that held my work ID card, or I'd have had to go back and ask Thomas for a lift. That wouldn't have done much for my claims of being a city survivalist.

I didn't have any money on me, though, and my wallet was in my purse back at the store. I had no doubts that my rescuer/kidnapper was right; whoever was after me would go back there looking for me.

I did a lot of swiping in CTA terminals. I changed trains three times, got a bus transfer to another train station, doubled and tripled back on myself which pretty much emptied the card. They had a tendency to go non-working on me, so I never kept a lot of cash on them. If anyone was following me, they were really good at blending in.

My instincts were to head for safe ground; my apartment, Mac's tavern, Matt's apartment. But my instincts were going to get me killed. They knew to look for me there. I had to find a new place to hide. Someplace I had never gone, or rarely went at any rate. Someplace they wouldn't think to look for a witch. Someplace I could get some money and a phone.

I had no idea. I had no choice, either. I was going to have to call someone to go get my purse, or at least my wallet. That meant I needed a phone. In this age where almost everyone has a cell phone, I'd have had more luck finding a carrier pigeon than finding a working pay phone, so I didn't bother.

First stop, Navy Pier. I was still dressed for work, which meant I didn't look completely scrubby. One sob story to a nice family landed me the use of a cell phone, and I called Matt.

"Matt! I need you to listen and not ask stupid questions like 'is this you', okay? Listen. You need to go to the store and get my wallet. Then bring it to me at the Navy Pier. I'll meet you by the Ferris wheel. Okay?"

"Grace? Is that you?"

I thumped my forehead with the palm of my free hand. "Matt, for the love of little green apples…"

"I take it there's trouble."

"Yeah. Trouble. Worse than Halloween trouble, I think. Someone might be following you to find me, so take a lot of trains okay? And… they have guns, so be really careful."

Silence. Talk about your tests of friendship. "Get your wallet from the store. Bring it to you at the Ferris wheel on the Pier. Don't get seen."

"Yeah."

"One hour." He hung up.

I closed my eyes and tried not to cry, but at least the tears in my eyes convinced the family I was a decent person when I returned the phone to them. They even offered to give me a ride somewhere, but I thought about the sound of a nail gun on a metal trunk and declined.

They did buy me a corn dog, though. That was nice.

I didn't stay by the Ferris wheel. I made a point of moving around, keeping an eye on the shifting crowds, trying to see if anyone else was lingering. What would lingering witch-killers look like? My mind dredged up images of the Inquisitors from Monty Python, but I was pretty sure that wasn't who was after me. Pretty sure. I should have asked Thomas who they were, I should have gotten some idea of what to look for.

Hindsight would be way more useful if you had it beforehand.

I spotted Matt before he spotted me, but I didn't go to him right away. Instead, I did another lap of the area, making sure no one had followed him. I still didn't see anything suspicious, so I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"That's a cute noise," I said as he tried to recover. "If a chicken could make a girly squeal, it would sound just like that."

"Jesus, Grace, don't do that," he said, hitting me in the arm. "What's going on?"

I kicked him in the shins.

"Ow! What the hell?"

"That's for the website," I said. I looked around again. "Walk with me."

We strolled through the crowds. I didn't pay any attention to where we went, I just walked wherever the crowds were thickest. Whenever there was a turn to make, I turned toward people. Which got us a few strange looks as I told him how I'd spent my evening.

"A vampire? Really?"

"Psi-vamp," I said. "Not a real vampire. They're basically normal people. They can go out in sunlight, all that stuff. They just feed on psychic energy, that's all."

"And you trust him?"

"No," I said. Then I paused. "But he did save me. I think. Assuming he wasn't just setting me up."

"God, I can't believe someone's really trying to kill you." He looked around. "We should go to the cops."

"Yeah," I said. "I thought of that. But…"

"But what?"

"But we were tearing through midtown Chicago and on the freeway, bullets flying, cars blowing up… and not one cop? Not one?"

"Someone bought off the cops?"

"I think so," I said, pausing to look out at the water. "I can't go to the cops. I can't go home. I can't go to Mac's, even. In fact, I can only think of one thing to do."

"What's that?"

He was going to love this. "Call Dresden."

"_Harry_ Dresden? Are you insane?"

"If anyone knows anything about people killing witches, it'll be him." And I'd heard he was a Warden now. I wondered why I still hadn't told Matt about the Wardens.

"Have you forgotten what happened last time? The dinosaur, Grace. Remember the dinosaur?"

This was way more amusing than it should have been under the circumstances. "Yes, I haven't forgotten. But there are already gun-toting maniacs after me. How much worse can it get?"

"I can't believe you just said that. Turn around three times and spit."

"I thought it was curse."

"Turn around three times, curse, and then spit. And stop distracting me with bits from _The West Wing_. Are you sure, Grace?"

"No," I admitted. "But they're probably watching your house, too. I can't… can't do anything I'd normally do. I need help, and Dresden's like Ground Zero, sure, but he's also not entirely a bad guy. It's him or the vampire."

Matt handed me his cell phone. Calling information for the number wasn't as fun as it should have been, now that 411 is mostly automated. I'd have enjoyed asking someone for Wizard comma Harry Dresden.

It was full dark by now, and the Pier was getting ready to close. The crowds were thinning, and I think that's the only reason I saw him. He was tall, slender, and he was wearing a gray cloak.

A Warden? Dresden?

I closed the phone without dialing and frowned, hesitantly taking a step toward the man. He gestured to me, then nodded his head toward the deeper shadows behind one of the closed food carts. "Hang on," I murmured to Matt. "I think… Wait here."

"What? Where are you going?"

Cautiously, I walked toward the Warden, waving Matt to stay. I was almost within arm's reach before I could see him well enough to tell it wasn't Harry Dresden. "Grace Bowden?" he asked.

I nodded.

"The Council sent me. I've come to get you someplace safe. We need to go, right now."

"But, my friend…"

I started to turn toward Matt, but the Warden grabbed my arm. "There's no time. It's not safe. They're here."

I panicked. My heart tried to run off without the rest of me, flinging itself repeatedly against my ribcage. Cold sweat on my forehead got colder in the breeze coming off the water and I shivered, shuddered. "Oh god," I whispered, looking around. The shadows seemed too dark, the lights too bright, the laughter too shrill. I had to get away, I had to run. I ran.

Fortunately, the Warden kept up with me and managed to nudge me toward the parking lot. I was still shaking when we got to his car, hard enough that my hands couldn't work the latch. I inhaled, sharp and quick, to keep from crying and surprised myself with a broken sob born out of fear. It took me a minute of tugging and yanking before I realized the door was locked. I looked up at the Warden who stood on the other side of the car, keys in hand, watching me with…

I couldn't understand it. He looked dreamy, satisfied almost. "Hey!" I snapped. "Open the damned door!"

Then Matt hit him with a tire iron.

The Warden snarled a word that I don't use in public and whirled. I blinked and could only watch, stunned, as he clocked Matt across the jaw fast enough that I wouldn't have seen the motion if the gray cloak hadn't trailed behind his fist. Matt's aim had been good; he had hit the Warden in the head. He should have gone down, the way Matt did.

And I wasn't afraid anymore.

The Warden turned back to me, and I saw his eyes were silver as moonlight.

Son of a bitch.

About a year and a half ago, I had been given a book as a gift. It was one heck of a gift. Not only did it give me a couple of rather useful ghost-related spells, it had also opened my eyes to how much could be accomplished with magic that I had never suspected. I had gotten a promotion at work and with it came an increase in pay grade. I still lived in the same crappy apartment, though, because most of the extra money went into Artemis Bock's pocket.

I had a lot more books now.

I clenched my hands into fists and fed my anger, shock, and leftover fear into my magic. It still wouldn't be enough to flip cars, but it was enough to flip clothes. "_Vente turbo_!" I screamed, hurling my magic at the ground.

A miniature whirlwind sprang up, whipping the folds of the gray cloak over the head of the fake Warden, twisting them around and around his face. Brakes screamed as a car spun next to us, the back door flinging open.

"In!" yelled Thomas.

I darted around the car and grabbed Matt's prone body, hauling him backwards and into the car. His legs dangled out and the door was open, but good enough. "Go!"

He went, the car streaking toward the exit. Another rental, I guessed, but this one was a Grand Cherokee. Thomas didn't bother with pesky suggestions like roads; he vaulted through the shrubbery and threw us into traffic while I grabbed Matt's belt buckle and heaved him the rest of the way into the car. Physics shut the door and I lay back, panting.

After a moment, Thomas stopped trying to achieve Ludicrous Speed and I sat up, shoving my hair out of my eyes. "Twice in one day," I said. "I hope you don't charge overtime for daring rescues."

"You're getting the I-told-you-so discount," he said.

"You followed Matt?"

"I followed Matt," he said. "Just like they did."

I thought about what I had seen while Thomas got us into a normal traffic flow. "That wasn't a Warden," I said.

"Nope."

"He was like you."

Gray eyes glared at me in the rear view mirror. "Not entirely."

"I mean, a psi-vamp."

"You really need to stop using that word."

"What are you, then?"

He returned his gaze to the road. "I'm the guy who saved your ass. Twice."

I gentled my tone. "Hey, c'mon. I'm not trying to insult you here, I'm trying to understand what's happening to me and who – or what – is responsible. I have to know if I'm going to defend myself."

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "Vampire," he said. "White Court."

"You said that before. What does it mean?"

He took a deep breath. "There are different courts of vampires. Each set is a different… breed, I guess you could say. White Court vampires are what you're calling psi-vamps. We feed on emotions. Some of us on lust, some on despair, some—"

"Fear," I interrupted with a flash of insight. "I wasn't afraid until he grabbed me. And when he stopped at the car, he looked all…" Orgasmic wasn't a word I could utter under the circumstances without throwing up in my mouth a little.

"He was feeding," Thomas confirmed. "Luckily. It made for a good distraction."

"Ew," I said. "Ew! That's nasty! Can we go back and hit him again?"

"I'm sure you'll get another chance," he said, good humor restored. "How's your friend?"

I looked down at Matt, still unconscious, and stroked a lock of hair out of his face. I had to smile. "I can't believe he hit a vampire in the head with a tire iron. I think he forgot he was a geek."

Silence from the front seat for a moment, then Thomas said, "He didn't hesitate, either, when I told him the plan. He must really love you."

I dropped my hand hastily away from Matt's forehead to his stomach, holding him on the seat. "No, it's not like that," I said. "We're just good friends."

"Uh huh."

"It's not like that," I repeated. "Matt's celibate."

The car swerved a little as Thomas recoiled. "Celibate?"

I looked up. "It's not contagious, you know."

"Yeah, but… _why_?"

"He says sex ruins lives. It complicates things. He has a whole speech; you should hear it sometime when you're interested in being lectured to."

"He has a point," Thomas murmured. We drove a few more blocks before he added, "That doesn't mean he doesn't love you, though. Love and sex are complimentary, but not equivalent. You can love someone and not have sex with them."

At first I thought it was a weird thing for a lust-vampire to say, but then… "I guess you'd know."

"I do," he said, soft enough that I almost didn't catch it.

"So. Hotel?"

"Nothing so upscale," he said.

I sighed and set my head back against the seat, giving in to fatigue. I had learned better how to stretch my meager talent, and my background education in magic had let me advance in leaps and bounds through book-learning, but it still cost and I still had a piper to pay.

Matt didn't wake up and I didn't sleep, but neither of us moved away as his fingers twined with mine.

"I'd call it a roach motel," I said, eyeing the building, "but even roaches have more self-respect."

"I could take you home," Thomas offered, swinging out of the Jeep to unlock the room's door.

"Nah," I said, sliding out of the back seat. "What do roaches know?"

"And again, I say ow," Matt grumbled, following me out.

"A-plus on the swing," Thomas said, holding the door open for us. "But you fail Dodging 101."

"This must be that Hard Knocks school I've heard so much about," Matt said. "The instructors are assholes, by the way."

I handed him the ice bucket from the faux-Formica countertop in the bathroom. "Go get some ice," I said. "We'll ice up your jaw."

He wandered off toward the distant soda machines and I dropped down to sit on one of the beds, watching Thomas pull the curtains. "So. You and me, alone in a motel room," I said, then pretended to check a watch I wasn't wearing. "About four hours ago, that would've sounded pretty good to me."

"Don't kid yourself. It still sounds pretty good to you. But Matt'll be back in like five minutes," Thomas said, folding his arms over his chest and leaning indolently against the door jamb, crossing one lean leg over the other.

They were very nice legs. I forced myself to stop eyeing him. I was even giving myself the creeps. "That's four more than I would have needed."

"But not more than you would have wanted."

"Kinda cocky, aren't you?"

He touched one finger to the center of his entirely too sculpted chest. "Me? No. Voice of experience. Lots and lots of experience."

I smiled a little. The banter helped, and I think Thomas knew it. "Braggart," I accused, flopping back to stare at the water-stained ceiling. At least, I hoped they were water stains. "Now what?"

"Now, once Matt's back, I go out and get you two some supplies and you sit tight."

"Matt too, huh?"

"Matt too huh. They know he left with you. If he shows up again, they'll make him talk."

And the odds weren't good Matt would survive the telling. "This sucks," I muttered.

"You say that now," he said, pushing off to flip the curtain aside and look out. "Wait'll you've been stuck here for three or four days with nothing to do but watch TV and bicker with the celibate guy you're not in love with."

I blinked and imagined it. "I take it back. Take me home. Let them have me."

He didn't take me seriously, just opened the door to admit Matt, who got a thin towel from the bathroom and made up an ice pack to hold to his jaw.

"Any requests?" Thomas asked, tossing me a room key.

"Toothbrushes," I said.

"Very soft food," Matt mumbled.

Thomas grinned and leaned forward to clap Matt sympathetically on one shoulder. "I'll see what I can do," he promised. "Grace?"

I looked up from examining the listing of free cable porn movies.

"Think about what we talked about earlier. The names?"

I hesitated, then nodded and looked down.

Matt looked from Thomas to me, but didn't say anything until he had left. "What names?"

"Other witches," I said, tossing the list aside.

"You still don't trust him?"

I turned on my side to face Matt, him on one bed, me on the other. "It's not that easy," I said. "I can't give out their names without asking them first. Without telling them why. It just… They'd never trust me again. No one would talk to me, no one would even come in the store."

"Is this another one of those magic secrecy things? You know how I hate that crap."

"I don't think we have a monopoly on not wanting to be outed for fear of retribution," I said.

He let that go with a shrug. "Seems to me in this case they're in more danger if you don't out them."

He was probably right. I sighed. "Want to watch TV?" I said.

"What else are we going to do?"

Good question. I turned on the set.

Three days later, I was ready to risk meeting Fear Vamp again if it would get me out the room.

Thomas had dropped off supplies – food, water, clean shirts, toiletries – and vanished again. He had called once to make sure we were okay. We couldn't call him. He hadn't left me his number, and the room phone didn't work. Thomas had even confiscated Matt's cell phone, not that it was all that reliable around me after any extended period of time anyway.

The television went from working to working intermittently to not working at all. The remote had quit working after the first hour. We both blamed me, but there hadn't been much I could do about it. The room was too small for me to get that far away from it, and the situation meant I was either scared, pacing from pent-up energy, or just plain annoyed.

On the evening of the third day, we were pretending we didn't hate each other. Matt was trying to start an argument about pizza toppings and I was trying to ignore him when someone knocked on the door.

We froze. I was on the bed closest to the door, so I eased to my feet and paced silently to it. I didn't open it, I didn't even use the peephole or look out the curtains. Instead, I set my hand against the door and let out a whisker-fine thread of magic.

Hotels don't have thresholds, and cheap motels certainly don't. There was nothing to anchor a ward to, so I hadn't tried. Instead, I was relying on Ward Lite. Basically, wards can alert the caster to someone crossing into their territory. Some of them can even sense hostile intent. What I did was a modification, just the hostile intent part.

I sensed nothing. There was something out there, but it didn't mean us harm. I unlocked the door and stepped back.

Thomas stood there. My mouth went dry. It was easy to let memory and distance, even just a couple of days, blur how good-looking he was, but when he was inches away my body had a definite and enthusiastic response to his appearance. I tried to remember how to breathe while my hormones frisked like happy puppies.

"We're leaving," Thomas said. "I have a safe house. Get your things."

He didn't have to tell us twice. We stuffed what few things we had into the shopping bags they had come in and hurried out the door. Thomas had ditched the Grand Cherokee in favor of a passenger van. When I slid the door open, I saw we weren't going to be the only occupants.

A woman clutched her daughter to her and stared at me, all but hyperventilating. Her face bore a long, shallow cut and there was blood on her shirt. The girl, no more than six and wearing a pair of Hannah Montana pajamas, clung to a stuffed giraffe as tightly as the woman held her, hiding as much of herself behind the toy as she could.

We got in without comment and Thomas swung into the driver's seat. "Just relax," he advised us. "It'll take a little while to get where we're going."

A few minutes of awkward silence passed, before the woman spoke. "I know you," she said to me, her voice still shaking. "You work at Widdershins."

I nodded. "I'm a manager there," I said.

Her hands absently smoothed her daughter's blonde hair. I waited while she sorted all this out. It had taken me awhile to get any type of composure back; the least I could do was be as patient with her as Thomas had been with me. "So… they came after you, too?"

I glanced at the girl, but her eyes were closed. She had gone to sleep, escaping reality. I hoped her dreams were nicer. "Twice," I said.

"I think they f-followed us home from school when I picked up Laurie," she said, almost whispering. "I had just gotten her ready for bed. She went to call the cat in and… I heard her scream. I ran out after her. I thought it was her father trying to abduct her. I grabbed my gun and shot him. We ran for the road. Then this van pulled up… I didn't know… I thought maybe…"

She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, covering it to prevent her sobs from waking her daughter. I reached out to touch her arm, offering her what sympathy I could. Finally, she lowered her hand, her voice a hoarse whisper. "Is he… Can we trust him?"

I glanced toward the front seat and caught Thomas's gaze for a moment in the rear view mirror. "Yes," I said, looking back at the woman. "We can trust him."

Her name was Valerie, but I didn't learn much more than that. She was exhausted and couldn't seem to do much besides stare out the window and stroke her daughter's hair. I let her be. I knew how she felt.

Thomas took a lot of turns, retracing his path over and over before he finally took us somewhere out past Evanston. He pulled into a driveway and didn't turn off the engine. I slid up into the passenger seat next to him at his gesture.

"Here," he said, handing me a set of keys. "I'm renting it from a friend, so the threshold shouldn't give you problems. I sent her on vacation. I have to ditch the van; it's been seen and they'll be looking for it. I'll be back. Just keep your heads down."

Matt helped Valerie out of the van. She didn't want to let go of her daughter, and no one wanted to force the issue. I tossed him the keys and held up a finger to him, turning back to Thomas after Matt nodded his understanding.

"I need to be able to reach you," I said. "In case they do track us or if someone gets seriously sick or injured. Emergencies only," I promised.

He leaned across me to pull a pen out of the glove box, then took my hand and wrote ten digits on it. "Call me if you think of anything," he said.

If I thought of anyone, he meant.

Head down, I climbed out of the van then paused before shutting the door. "Thomas?"

"Yeah?"

"How many… You said I was the first one you'd beaten them to. How many have they killed?"

"In Chicago?"

I nodded, not quite meeting his gaze.

"Three. That I know of."

I shut the door and watched the van pull down the drive and out into the street. I lingered longer than I should have, only turning to the house when I heard Matt calling my name quietly. The walk back to the house took a long time, dragging as much guilt as I was. At the door, I pushed past Matt and stood in the small kitchen, staring at my hand.

There was a phone on the wall. I picked it up and dialed. "Thomas," I said. "Grab that pen."

A week and a half later, there were nine of us in the house, ten if you counted little Laurie. Matt had moved out, much to my dismay – and relief – on the strength of his argument that he was best suited to helping Thomas. His entire business was done over the phone and on the computer. He could use a cell phone to coordinate, use the computer to help find and track people, and could drive people around. Thomas gave him a crash course in evading trackers and Matt took to the life of secrecy like a duck to water. For a geek, he had really gotten into the secret agent thing.

I refused to call him Double-Oh-1337, no matter how much he begged. Or Agent Carmichael.

Kia had made as narrow escape as either Valerie or I had, but the others had been picked up well in advance of the fake Warden and whoever was helping him. It had taken some doing to get them to listen to our stories, but there were some who we didn't manage to get to at all. News of their deaths and our disappearances was starting to circulate very quietly through the community, and just seeing us alive was enough to buy us some credibility.

I met Thomas at the car as he dropped off another confused passenger. Valerie and Sarah helped her inside, starting the run-down on what was going on, figuring out how much she knew and what she still needed to know.

"Hey," I said.

He handed me a bag of groceries. "Everyone okay?"

"You betcha, White Knight. But uh… I've been thinking."

He shut the door and cocked an eyebrow at me. I told my fluttering pulse to shut up and tried to stop noticing the way shadows caressed the planes of his face. "Word's getting around," I said. "About those of us who've gone missing. And the dead ones. There are rumors the Wardens are involved, so no one's going to the authorities. Which, I guess, was the whole point of the gray cloak."

He frowned, not seeing yet where I was going with this. "Okay," he said.

I shifted my burden to my other arm. "So someone should go to the authorities."

"I see," he said, leaning a hip against the rental. "And who should I tell?"

"Harry Dresden," I said.

He flinched from the name, actually flinched, and turned away from me. "I can't," he said after a minute.

I guess they had met. Maybe Dresden hadn't taken the time to find out that Thomas was a good guy, and they had clashed. "He's not a bad guy," I said, leaning to one side to try and follow Thomas's expressions. "He's a little… reactionary, sure, and I wouldn't exactly want to go halvesies with him on a Limoges outlet store or anything, but he's what passes for the authorities in this corner of the world. He should know."

"I can't, Grace. Just drop it."

"Then let me tell him."

"No," he turned back to me, gray eyes and black hair and liquid moonlight. God, he was beautiful. "You have to let me play this my way. It's the only way. I've kept you all alive this long."

I looked at him. He looked at me. I didn't meet his eyes, though. "Trust you, huh?" I said.

"Yeah. Trust me."

I sighed. "You know how hard it is for women to tell you 'no', right?"

His smile didn't hold much amusement. "Yeah. I'm counting on it."

"You suck." I fished in my back pocket and handed him a folded sheet of paper.

"What's this?" he asked, even as he unfolded it and looked it over.

"It's April 31st," I said. "Beltane at midnight. We're not all Wiccan, but we all still recognize Beltane. We'd like some stuff so we can have a ceremony."

"What, by tonight?"

"Well, some of us celebrate it on the night of the 31st, some on the night of the 1st and Catrina does things up on the first full moon after the first of the month, but we all need to blow off some steam."

He lifted the note in acknowledgement. "I'll see what I can do."

I watched him leave. I didn't want to let him go. I think I was starting to crush on the vampire hero. What a mess.

So when I heard the car in the driveway and after the headlights flashed the code, I deliberately let someone else go out and pick up the supplies. I heard voices approaching the house, chatty and light, and identified Matt's easily.

Which meant Thomas hadn't come back himself. Well, that was just embarrassing. I guess I wasn't the only one who'd figured out what was going on with me. Still, it was subtle and polite of Thomas. And it was good to see Matt again. I hugged him in greeting.

"Hey," he said. "I heard there was going to be naked moonlight dancing around a cauldron of apples or something and came right over."

"Oh sure," Jessica said, snagging the apples from the top of the bag and winking at me. "Wouldn't be Beltane without naked dancing and sex in the corn rows."

Matt eyed her, then looked at me. "Is she serious?" he asked in an undertone.

I shrugged. Jessica was nice enough, but she was 'earthy', as Cat put it. Valerie preferred 'slutty', but I stayed out of it. "Probably," I said. "But don't worry, we've come up with something that all of us can agree on and it doesn't involve anything that would shock your grandmother."

"I think Bubbe would be shocked at the idea of nine witches having a backyard Beltane ceremony, no matter how tame it was."

He had a point and we didn't have much time before midnight. Matt kept an eye on Laurie while we made our preparations. Given the short time, the showers were communal and accompanied by a lot of laughter and splashing water. Cleaning up the bathroom was going to be a bitch, but it was worth it to see everyone smiling for once.

We didn't go skyclad, but none of us wore restrictive clothing. I had on a plain t-shirt that fell to my knees, as did most of the others, courtesy of whatever Chicago Bulls player lived in the house. Catrina was too tall for that, so she rated the only bathrobe that didn't look like it came from a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue, and Jessica had opted for the robe that did look like it came from a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue.

"You have to be kidding me," Valerie muttered.

"Everyone's got their own way," I reminded her.

"I just don't know if I can do a circle with her," she said. "Perfect love and perfect trust? I don't think…"

I leaned around her. "Hey, Jess. If something goes down, who's the first one you save?"

She frowned at the odd question but didn't hesitate. "Laurie," she said.

I straightened and arched an eyebrow at Valerie who ducked her head and grinned. "Yeah," she said. "Okay." It was hard not to like someone who'd put themselves between your kid and danger.

We gathered in the backyard, concealed from the neighbors by nighttime, spring foliage, and a high privacy fence. "Who takes point?" I asked, checking that the fire in the firepit was ready to light.

"You do," Kia said.

"Me?" I wasn't the oldest or the most experienced, and from every circle I'd ever been to that was how the lead was chosen.

"You're the strongest of us," Valerie said, not seeming to mind handing over control to someone younger than she was.

"Sure," I said, flattered. "Okay, circle 'round and let's say hi to the spirits that be."

We stood in a circle around the backyard firepit, hands extended towards each other, left hands palm up and right hands palm down so that the right hand was the dominant, the top hand.

As the circle began to close, hand to hand, witch to witch, I felt something flutter against the skin of my face. It abruptly occurred to me to ask if anyone had ever been in a circle of all witches before, but then Valerie's hand took mine on my left and Sarah's clasped mine to my right. The circle closed.

Power swept over me, moving from right to left, circling around and around. I heard assorted gasps and soft cries of astonishment as the energy swirled around again, faster and faster until it was a continuous flow of magical power.

We stood in silent amazement.

"Groovy," I said into the quiet.

Across the circle, the new girl, Elise, giggled. That set the rest of us off and laughter flowed between us as freely and easily as the energy was.

"Go for it, Grace," Jessica urged. "Let 'em know we're here!"

The ceremony we had concocted was as non-denominational as we could make it. Not all of us observed the same rituals. We didn't all summon guardians to watch, we didn't all call the quarters, we didn't all invoke the same deities or spirits. So we decided to go for generic.

I tilted back my head, exposing my face to the night. "Let the spirits of fertility and life be with us an—"

The words stuck in my throat. Something, somewhere, coming closer. Fast. Dark. Malevolent. It meant us ill and it was aimed directly at us. It had been waiting for this, for us to become visible. And now it was coming.

"Matt!" I yelled. "Get Thomas!"

I disengaged from the circle. Now that it had been established, power kept flowing from the others to me. In the normal course of most pagan ceremonies, the high priestess didn't stand in direct physical contact, and I guess that's what this was and what I was. It was all intent.

"Sarah, close up with Valerie. Clasp hands. Don't break the circle. Laurie, honey, crawl in the center."

I kept my eyes on the shadows. I couldn't tell what was coming. I could just feel it. The early spring insects fell silent. Even the breeze stopped whispering in the trees. A block away, a dog started barking furiously. Half a block away, a trash can toppled over with a clatter. On the other side of the fence, tree branches rustled.

It flung itself at me out of the darkness, the crumpled, battered wreck of something that wasn't a man. The arms were bony and long, the rib cage distended, the legs crooked and misshapen. Its face was disarranged, put together out of bad clay and rotten mud by a mad three-year-old.

I whipped my hand up, palm toward it, and shouted, "_Inflammus_!"

Y'know what I could usually do with that spell? Light a candle from about three feet away. Y'know what I could do with that spell with the power of eight other witches, even minor ones, behind me?

The thing's head burst into flames. It shrieked and writhed on the ground, beating itself in the head, sucking in flames with every breath. Before it could put out the flames, Matt appeared beside it and put three rapid-fire shots in its head from a gun I hadn't even realized he had.

I stared at him. He stared at me. Perceptions shifted, altered. He wasn't just "Matt, the geek" anymore. He wasn't just the guy who had to color-sort his M&Ms before he'd eat them, or the guy who actually owned two pairs of Hush Puppies. He was a man with a gun who knew how to use it, and didn't hesitate to shoot to save my life.

Judging by his expression, he was having a similar board-to-the-head moment. I became uncomfortably aware that I was only wearing a long t-shirt. Loose strands of my hair lifted on the night breeze and teased the skin of my face. Matt opened his mouth, drew in a breath to speak.

I heard a shriek and whirled. Another one of the things was clambering down the roof of the house. I ran around the circle of witches to get closer to it. Combat magic had not been on my list of studies. I had never had any reason to suspect I'd either need it or be able to do any of it. I had to be clever, because not even this power was going to last that long.

I spied the black cables on the side of the house. The television hadn't worked for about four days now, despite everyone's best effort. So no one would mind if I borrowed the cables, right? I gestured toward them. "_Movete_!" I commanded, flipping my hand toward the scrambling monster. "_Movete_, _movete_!"

Cables snapped free and leaped out like tentacles to wrap around the thing even as it jumped for me, snagging it in midair and pinning it against the house.

Matt ran forward, trying to get a clear shot at it, but he'd only been practicing with a handgun for ten days or so. I left him to it, assured the thing wasn't going anywhere.

Something struck me hard across the face, and I went flying into the patio furniture. I tried to get to my feet, staring shocked at the burned and bullet-riddled monstrosity that scrambled after me. My brain froze, grappling with what it was seeing, and I could only stare as it climbed atop the table I had knocked over and crouched to spring.

Its head flew off its shoulders.

I blinked past the toppling body. Thomas stood in the moonlight, pale as alabaster, silver eyes brighter than the stars overhead. He all but glowed, and his black hair seemed spun from the night's shadows. In one hand was a curved knife dripping with a darkness I didn't want to identify.

After a moment, I managed to point to the other one. "There," I said.

He turned away, perfect profile silhouetted against the night sky for an instant. I never saw him move, he was just gone. I rolled onto my hip to watch.

Matt hadn't yet gotten a shot he liked, not with the thing moving in the darkness. Thomas spoke to him quietly and he stepped aside. I watched Thomas take a running leap onto the heat pump, using it as a springboard to plant one foot on the wall, then another. He leaped high and whipped his blade down and across, severing the thing's head as he pivoted in midair and twisted his body, falling back to earth to land a crouch.

Wow.

I rose to my feet and took an involuntary step toward him.

Someone screamed and I felt the boost of magical energy desert me. The absence, the emptiness staggered me, and I stumbled around to face the others.

A third creature had taken advantage of our distraction to climb silently over the fence. It had already savaged Jessica, had broken the circle. It was sprinting for the fence, dragging a shrieking Laurie with it.

"No!" I cried, reaching a hand out helplessly and running as best I could toward the fence, Matt matching me stride for stride.

Something flew past me, a blur of alabaster motion, and then Thomas was grappling with the creature on top of the fence. It screeched and snapped its arm upward, sending Laurie flying into the air. Caught between imperatives, Thomas let go of the thing to dive after the little girl, snagging her as she fell.

But the motion had left him vulnerable. The monster lashed out, its ragged claws ripping Thomas's throat open from ear to ear. His body and Laurie's hit the ground at the same time.

Matt opened fire, emptying seven more rounds into the thing. He didn't stop there, but once it was down he picked up Thomas's knife and hacked at it until the head finally came off. Panting for breath, he threw the knife down and staggered back.

I dropped to the ground beside Thomas. "Oh god," I said. "Okay. Okay… Just hang on, okay?"

Thomas's blood shone in the moonlight, an oddly pale shade more pinkish than deep red. I took Laurie away from him and thought frantically. "Get everyone inside!" I snapped. "Pack everything, we're moving out in thirty minutes!"

I heard the others scrambling toward the house, weeping. I didn't even have time to look after Jessica, I had to trust them to do it. Matt stood behind me. "Grace."

"He's not dead," I said. "He's a vampire."

"What are you— Grace, no."

I looked up at him. "Go inside. Help Jessica."

"Grace!"

"He saved our lives, Matt!" I licked my lips and tried not to panic again. "Just… Go inside. And keep them in there. I don't know if they'll be safe if they come out."

I looked back down at Thomas. He was unconscious now, and the blood was only trickling out of his neck. Matt left, footsteps retreating inside the house.

"Okay," I said again, quelling the terrified flutter of my heartbeat. "Okay. Here we go."

Closing my eyes, I bent low and kissed Thomas.

Three seconds passed, three seconds with no reaction. Nothing happened. I deepened my kiss, brushing his lips with my tongue.

I had an instant to feel his lips begin to move under mine. Then his hand clamped down on the back of my neck, and the world exploded into silver and white passion.

It was dark. Heavy blackness pulled at me, a sucking void that urged me to fall back down into its silent depths. Faintly I could hear someone crying. I clawed my way toward it, fought for every inch. Eyes. I should open my eyes.

My ears worked first. The crying grew louder. I heard tires, felt myself wobbling back and forth. We were moving.

"I think she's awake! Grace?"

I lost my grip and fell again.

The afterlife was bright yellow and decorated with cows. I frowned, then realized I could frown, which probably meant this wasn't the afterlife. I don't think they allowed frowning in the afterlife. I blinked a few times, but the view didn't change except to add the detail of gingham curtains.

Gradually, I realized I was lying on a small bed in what was probably a kid's room. I was also really, really tired. Really tired. But I remembered. I remembered the backyard, I remembered Jessica and Thomas, and I wanted answers more than I wanted sleep.

I tried to sit up, but my body was divided on the sense of that action. Pain flared, pinning me where I was. I gasped and rode it out. My throat felt like I had eaten the pillows instead of just slept on them. There was actually a glass of water on the bedside table, and I reached for it. Turns out I wasn't up to complicated tasks like 'grasping', and I knocked it over instead.

The noise brought someone running. I looked toward the door expecting either Matt or Thomas, but got Valerie. "Hey," she said with far more relief than one syllable should be able to convey. "You're awake."

"I don't think so," I said, sounding like the Albino from Princess Bride before he'd cleared his throat.

She helped me sit up and even helped me drink some water after she refilled the glass.

"Jessica?" I asked.

"Fine," she said. "A little the worse for wear, and she's complaining about never being able to wear a bikini again." Her smile was wan, but present. "Thomas brought a doctor, someone he knew. Stitched her up, gave her some blood, and she was right as rain after a couple of days."

A couple of days? How long had I been out? But I didn't really want to know, not yet. So instead, I asked, "Thomas is okay?"

Her gaze flickered away from me.

"Val?"

"He's fine," she said. "He's been checking in on you. He just… Physically, he's fine."

I groaned and sat up the rest of the way, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed. "Okay," I said, letting her steady me. "Make with the bad news. How long have I been out?"

"A week," she said softly.

A week. Holy crap. "Well, that explains why I have to pee so bad."

Relieved, Valerie laughed. "There's a bathroom right over there. Let's get you up."

It took some doing, but we managed to get me upright. I had to lean on her more than I wanted to, frankly. I hurt all over, in addition to feeling weak as watered milk. But Valerie was a mom, and she knew how to do the gentle encouragement thing. We made it to the bathroom, and I glanced up at the mirror over the sink.

I stopped moving. I had… aged. A week ago I had been twenty-five. Now, I looked closer to sixty. My brown hair was streaked with gray, and deep wrinkles were carved into the sides of my mouth, the corners of my eyes, across my forehead. I didn't even recognize myself for a few heartbeats.

Shoving Valerie away from me, I staggered to the sink and braced my hands on it, staring into the mirror. The green-gold eyes that stared back were undoubtedly mine, and as I turned my head slowly side to side, the image of the elderly woman followed my motions.

Valerie touched my shoulder gently. "Thomas said to tell you it would fade. The worst of it, anyway. You'll recover."

"I'll recover," I repeated to my reflection.

"He promised."

"Well if the vampire said it, it must be true, right?"

"Grace…"

I looked away from myself. "No. It's okay. I'm okay."

I didn't fight her as she helped me onto the toilet, but I drew the line at letting her help me bathe. While I sat in the hot water, she waited in the bedroom and pretended not to hear me crying.

While I had slept, the house's complement had grown by three women and one more child, a boy a couple of years younger than Laurie. When Valerie helped me downstairs and into the crowded kitchen, every one of them fell silent.

Someone slid a plate of pancakes in front of me, but I didn't start eating right away. I carefully picked up a fork in my wrinkled fingers. "Someone say something," I said, staring at my breakfast.

"Matt … Matt said you chose to do it," someone ventured. "Thomas wouldn't talk about it."

Chose it. I supposed I had, in a way. "Yeah," I said, digging the edge of the fork into the pancakes. "I chose it. It's not Thomas's fault."

A ripple of relaxation went through the women. It pissed me off, and I swallowed anger along with my first bite of food in seven days and thirty-five years. "What's the situation?" I asked.

After moving the lot of us to a new, safe location south of the city proper, Thomas and Matt had picked up right where they had left off. They weren't as successful in the last seven days as they had been the previous ten. Matt and Thomas apparently had been arguing a lot, not working together as well, and Thomas was having to turn to outside help, hiring local private investigators to help track down the women that the others named for him.

In addition to that difficulty, the fake Warden and his crew had figured out that Thomas was helping us. They had changed their game to compensate, and he was constantly one step behind them. The pressure was getting to him with every dead body he found one hour too late. He came less and less often to the house, each time stopping upstairs to stare at me and brood before stalking back out the door. It was Matt who made most of the delivery runs now.

"No one's done any spells, right? No magic?" I asked when they had finished catching me up.

"No," one of the new girls said. I had forgotten her name already. "After what happened at Beltane…"

I nodded. "You all felt it, then?" I glanced up at the circle of faces. "Someone else was working magic."

"We felt it," Cat said. "We told Thomas about it, that there was a wizard working with the fake Warden."

"We need to move," I said. "I need to talk to Thomas. Someone hand me the phone."

I thought about chasing them all out of the room so I could have some privacy, but they deserved to hear what I had to say. "This better be an emergency," Thomas growled into the phone.

"Lighten up, Quixhottie. It's been a rough week on all of us."

Silence. "Grace?"

"Yeah, I'm awake."

More silence. "How are you?"

"Oh. You know. Nothing a gallon of Miss Clairol and a few cans of spackle won't cure. Look, we have to be moved. We're not safe from a wizard here."

"I know."

"You're going to have to _really_ move us. I don't know how hard it will be, but you have to get us across—"

"Across water," he interrupted. "Flowing water grounds out magic. I know, Grace."

Oh. Well. "Er. Yeah. If I'd known you knew that, I'd have slept in," I said.

"I have something lined up, now that you're awake. It's taken a few days to get everything together. Make sure everyone's ready to move out tonight, late. And, Grace?"

"Yeah?"

Another round of silence. Then he hung up.

Valerie took the phone and hung it up. From the doorway, Sarah said, "Grace. Matt's here."

For that, everyone did clear out.

Matt sat and stared. I fiddled with my fork.

"What?" I finally demanded.

"Nothing!" he said, holding up his hands. "How do you feel?"

"I feel like shit. How do you think I feel? How do I look like I feel?" I dropped my fork, appetite gone.

"Well, to be honest… You look kinda hot."

I blinked at him, then surprised myself by laughing before I could get angry. "I _what_?"

"Seriously. You're MILFing, over there. It's sorta freaking me out."

"You total perv," I said. "You're not celibate, you have a granny complex." I threw a pancake at him.

Then he wrapped his arms around me and held me until I cried myself out.

Later, in the living room, I fell into a light doze with my head on Matt's shoulder, his arm wrapped around me. Everything was packed and waiting, but the air of nervous tension was keeping everyone up. I was the only one who could sleep. At 10:53, I snapped awake and sat up.

"Grace?" Matt said.

I looked toward the door. "Thomas is here," I said.

I didn't know how I knew, I just knew. I could feel him out there, pulling into the driveway. He shone against my senses. My stomach filled with butterflies of anticipation and it was all I could do to keep my seat.

He sat outside in the driveway for almost a full minute before he came inside. When he finally did, he did his best not to look directly at me. "Everyone get loaded up," he said. "One last move. Pack up the kitchen, if you didn't already."

Silently, everyone cleared out to start loading the cars. Only Matt remained with us finally.

"Matt," Thomas said quietly.

"I know you don't think I'm leaving," he said.

I looked from Matt to Thomas and back again. "Matt, don't. It's okay."

"It's really not okay, Grace. Okay is, like, way on the other side of the galaxy from what this is."

I frowned at him. "Hey, don't act like I was the victim, here. I did this. Me. I sent everyone away so I could do this. You included, you know."

"Really?" Matt asked, pulling away from me and turning so he could look at me. "Look me in the eyes and tell me that you knew this would happen."

"No," I said, meeting his eyes as requested. "I thought I'd probably die."

That hung there for a second in the air, then I dropped my eyes away from his to avoid the soulgaze.

Matt got up and left.

Thomas sat on the coffee table. "We should talk," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed, letting the word out as a sigh. "So. I gather there are some side-effects."

"A few," he said.

"Aging," I said. "And I knew you were coming."

"The aging will get better," he said. "It'll take time. There are… other problems. You're marked."

"I assume you don't mean the age spots."

He rose abruptly and paced away. "Don't joke."

I felt his pain like a twist in my own gut. He felt guilty. Soothing him would, contrarily, not soothe him. So I didn't try. "Marked?"

His back was to me. "Marked. The rest of the White Court will know you've been fed on. It'll make them want to feed from you, too. And you won't be able to resist them as easily as you might have before."

I thought about the first time I'd seen him, in the store when he walked in. I had been able to free myself, until he had put some effort into it. "I'll be more susceptible."

"Yes."

"Well, you were the first one I'd seen. So avoiding the others shouldn't be so hard."

"You're not the first one I've done this too, you know." He turned to face me again, his expression cold and distant. "If you want honesty, you're not even the one I regret the most."

I fingered the afghan in my lap and tried to figure out what was going on in his head. "I'm not okay with it," I told him. "I mean, I know I'm … You think I want to look like my grandmother, even temporarily? I have arthritis, for fuck's sake." I held up a hand to show him my knobby knuckles. "But not being okay with it doesn't mean I regret it, either. I'd do it again.

"Well," I said after a moment, bobbing my head, "not, like, a second time. I mean, I know you saved me three times and I only saved you once, but I think mine counts extra so we're even. I don't think I have another one of those saves in me. But I'd have made the choice I did, even if I had known about this. I'm not sorry I did it."

He listened to that, didn't interrupt me. As the first of the women came downstairs with their suitcases, he said, "I am."

He left to help load up his rental and Matt's car. Matt came in with my stuff in a suitcase. It was a long, quiet ride to the pier.

It was late when we got to the boat, but even so I had to stop and stare. Matt helped load some luggage and came back, grinning at my expression. "You looking for Richard Dreyfuss, too?" he asked.

"I'm wondering if Captain Quint is gonna be pissed we took his boat."

"Welcome aboard the _Water Beetle_," Thomas said, holding out a hand to help me down, Matt stabilizing me from the pier.

My hand touched Thomas's, and I felt the shock of it spill through me. My knees wobbled from the spike of unexpected pleasure.

Thomas gritted his teeth. I saw his jaw move. But he held me steady and didn't let go until I was safely on board. Then he went up front without a word, leaving Matt to help me to a seat.

Matt gave me a questioning look. I shrugged. What was there to say?

We docked and I let the others clamber off first. Thomas passed me to help unload supplies onto the dock, but he never went up to the cabin. He gave Valerie the keys and let her lead the pack. Finally, Matt helped me off the boat like the stupidly frail old woman I was.

"Grace."

I stopped and looked back.

Thomas didn't want to look at me, but finally he did. "We're running out of leads," he said. "I have about five people I need to find. After that, I've tapped out everyone that everyone can think of."

I closed my eyes and tried to think back to the mental list I had made in whichever decade that had been, then compared it to the women that were here, the women that had died. "Got a pen?"

He grabbed one, and a pad of yellow sticky notes.

"There's one coven I haven't seen here yet. Ordo Lebes, they call themselves." I spelled it for him. "But they're really insular."

"How do I find them?"

"I'm not sure," I said with a shrug. "They don't buy much from us, not that I know of anyway."

He added something to his note and nodded. "I'll find them. Thanks."

I didn't leave the dock until the boat's lights were indistinguishable from the distant lights of the city.

After a few days, a rental boat chugged up to the dock with boxes of supplies. The captain didn't know who hired him, but he handed me a sealed envelope when I came down, wrapped in a sweater against the chill no one else felt in the late spring air. The note inside was from Thomas, saying he was being followed too closely to come out to the island himself and he had a few more people safe and sound. He'd bring them out when he had another full load.

The captain called me ma'am.

Other than him, we didn't see anyone. Our cabin wasn't the only one on the island, just the only one that wasn't locked up tight. There was even a small bait and grocery shop, closed of course. It was still early May, too early for people to open their vacation homes, so we had the whole place to ourselves. The kids loved it and ran wild.

Matt had bowed out of the hunt altogether and stayed on the island. No one said a thing about it, not even me. He did keep his laptop and cell phone on the porch of another cabin, but aside from the time he spent there, he didn't leave my side.

Frankly, it was a little annoying. But only a little.

Slightly over a week after we got to the island, I woke up out of a sound sleep. We were bunking in close quarters. There were a dozen witches, two kids, and a Matt to cram into one cabin. Being old, even prematurely, had its benefits. I got a space on one of the beds, though I had to share.

Still, in the week of rest, good food, and attentiveness, I had improved greatly. I was able to slide out of bed, pull on a sweater and a pair of jeans (my increased age hadn't come with an increased waist size, thank the gods for small favors), and step out into the night without waking anyone.

I found Thomas easily. Didn't even need a flashlight to guide me to him. He was standing inside the ring of trees around the cabin, staring at its walls.

"You shouldn't be near me right now," he said.

He looked terrible, pale and starving. He looked wonderful. I ached to hold him.

"I dunno," I said, forcing myself to lean against a tree nearby. "I'm probably the only one who should be around you."

He watched the cabin. I watched him. "You look like Old Mother Hubbard's dog," I said after a minute.

"Cupboard's not bare, though," he said.

"Sure it is," I said. "There's nothing in there you'd eat."

"You sure about that?" he said, turning to look at me with moonlight eyes. "You?"

"We trust you."

"Yeah," he said, looking back at the cabin, his voice laced with bitterness. "I'm a perfect gentleman."

I ducked my head. I couldn't keep looking at him and not go to him. My hands clenched painfully, digging into my upper arms. I was leaving bruises, but that was still miles better than touching Thomas right now.

"It's almost over," he said finally. "The Skavis is dead."

"The what?"

"The one who was doing most of the killing."

"Most of it?"

A few heartbeats passed. "I'll explain the whole story to you sometime," he said. "You deserve that. But not now. There's still more to do. I just had to get away from them."

"Get away from them. So you came here. To us."

"I shouldn't be here either."

"Thomas…"

By the time I pushed away from the tree, he was gone.

I went back to the cabin.

Matt was waiting for me on the porch. "Thomas?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

He looked down at his feet. "I get it," he said. "I mean, I'm not even gay and I'd do him. And he did save you. Three times if you count Beltane. I get it. I won't… We're still friends."

I frowned. "What are you babbling about?"

"Thomas," he said. "I know you're in love with him. I'm just saying I'm okay with it." He turned to go inside.

"Matt. Wait. Dammit, don't make me hobble after you, I'm old."

He stopped, and I caught up with him just outside the door. "I'm not in love with Thomas."

"Grace, c'mon."

Words weren't going to convince him. I stepped close and locked eyes with him, his only a couple of inches above mine. "I'm not in love with Thomas."

I felt it shimmer between us, the opening of the soulgaze. And this time, for the first time, I didn't look away.

I still had to share the bed, but the company got better.

No, we didn't have sex, for a lot of reasons. One, my hips weren't up to it. Two, neither of us wanted an audience for what Jessica referred to as Matt's "inaugural ball". There were lots of smiles and nudges and wink-winks and we got the smallest bedroom to ourselves, but we just spent a lot of time curled up together. That didn't mean it wasn't nice.

Two days later, a charter boat came to pick us up. Matt had gotten a message on his cell phone, but we hadn't had much warning and we were still packing and tidying up when the boat arrived. The message had just said, "You can go home now. It's safe."

Thomas didn't come. I waited.

What could we do? We went home.

At least, most of us did.

Summer was creeping to a close when I saw Thomas again. I was sitting in a coffee shop reading a book when I sensed him very near. It had happened from time to time over the intervening months, though I had never chased down that fleeting sense of presence. And it was always fleeting. I respected his choice.

This time, though, he was close and not moving away. I didn't look up, not until he dropped into the chair across from me. I put my book down and smiled at him. "Hey," I said.

"Hi," he replied. "You look good." Then he frowned a little, puzzled. "You look really good."

"Wow, thanks. That was probably the most insulting compliment I've ever gotten."

I knew what he meant, though. My progress toward normalcy had been remarkable, I thought. I still didn't look my age. Maybe I never would. But I could pass for a well-preserved forty on a good day, just plain forty if the light was bad.

He nodded toward my head. "Nice color job," he said. "Auburn suits you."

"God, I knew you were gay the minute I saw your apartment." I reached up to touch my hair, smoothing it down. "Thanks, though. The gray didn't fade and no way was I putting up with that."

We sat in silence for a time, mostly companionable. I amused myself by watching women trip over chairs as they stared at him.

"Oh," I said, remembering. "I almost forgot. I've been carrying it around so long… I got something for you."

"You got something for me?"

"Yeah," I said, bending to rummage in my purse. "Sort of a thank you. Ah, here." I held out a little plastic baggie to him. He hesitated, then held one hand cupped beneath it and I let it fall. He didn't want to touch me. I respected that choice, too.

Setting his reluctance aside as something best not thought about, I watched as he opened the tiny bag and shook out the pewter keychain inside, a little knight with a lance riding a horse.

He dangled it from his fingers, then grinned. "Don Quixote?"

"It reminded me of you."

He chuckled. "Thanks," he said, looking at it for another minute before sliding it into a pocket. "I heard you were involved with that new Paranet they've got going."

I nodded. "It's a good idea. Sort of a more formal version of the grapevine right now, but there are plans for more."

"You meet Harry Dresden yet?"

He wasn't looking at me when he asked it. My turn to frown. "No," I said, answering him truthfully even though I didn't understand the intent. "He doesn't have time to meet and greet every small-timer who signs on. Met Elaine, though."

He just nodded, but he seemed relieved somehow. I wondered why he didn't want me meeting Dresden. I didn't ask. He didn't want me to.

"I went by the store," he finally said. "By Widdershins."

"So you know I don't work there anymore."

"They said you got fired."

"Well, I walked out on a shift and didn't show up for three weeks. Yeah, I got fired."

"But you lived."

"That's how I look at it."

"What're you doing these days?"

I fiddled with my coffee cup. "I'm, uh… Sponging off of a friend. Lost my apartment too, so I'm living with Matt now."

He tilted his head, smoky eyes narrowed. Abruptly, some hidden tension eased inside him, and he leaned back in his chair, legs sprawled under the table. He smiled slowly.

I had to smile when he did. "What?"

He started to laugh, and I did too. I also blushed, which I couldn't quite explain. "What are you laughing at? God."

"Celibate, huh?" He laughed some more.

"Oh. Well." I grinned and shrugged and looked elsewhere. "You know. Turns out he has a thing for cougars."

That set him off again. When he recovered, he said, "You're safe now, you know. From the White Court."

I shook my head. "What do you mean?"

"They can't touch you. Can't feed from you. You're protected. It probably explains your recovery, too. Love. Love protects you."

"Oh for…" I rolled my eyes and tried not to look pleased. "That's the dopiest, most Hallmark crap I've ever heard."

He spread his hands. "Doesn't make it any less true."

"So as long as I keep having sex with Matt, I can't be psi-vamp food?"

"And as long as you love each other, that's about it," he agreed. "Tell Matt I said he's welcome." He stood, then stopped. "Hey, do you still need a job?"

"Yeah," I said. "Not easy to find someone that'll hire me, since I can't get a decent recommendation. Why, you know of something?"

"I might," he said, gray eyes taking on a sheen of silent laughter. "How do you feel about bartending?"


End file.
